All posts tagged CSAIL

Researchers have shown that a computer can master the video game Civilization II—in part by reading the manual. In Civilization II, players decide how to deploy entities like settlers and explorers, on a map of the world divided into squares; the goal is to dominate as many squares as possible.

Like other artificial-intelligence programs, this new one, devised by researchers at M.I.T. and University College London, took in information about game circumstances and predicted the outcome of hundreds of moves each turn. It looked 20 moves down the line, for each of some 500 possible moves.

But in some cases it also scanned the manual, which is 35,000 words long and which, importantly, offers broad strategic guidance rather than a list of rules to follow. That’s one of the differences between this study and one from 2009, also from the lab of M.I.T.’s Regina Barzilay, in which a computer generated scripts for installing computer software by consulting the directions on Microsoft’s help site.

Without looking at the manual, the program won 46% of its games against the game’s built-in automated opponent. But when it read the guidelines, its win rate jumped to 79%. …

Biographies

Gary Rosen is the editor of Review and the former managing editor of Commentary magazine. His articles and reviews have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. He is the author of "American Compact: James Madison and the Problem of Founding" and the editor of "The Right War? The Conservative Debate on Iraq."